For what it is worth, this is how our school is set up. We have two PTO representatives serving on the School Board. Because our school is "company owned" the companies place two members each on the board plus our two. We do not have any board members serving on our PTO executive board even though we do not have a set policy in place about this. My husband is currently serving as the BOD president and I am the PTO president and it has been both a blessing and a curse! The earlier comment about the army was pretty accurate! The blessing has been that I can give my husband insight to happenings at the school, needs of teachers and parents, and build a bridge between the Admin, the BOD and the school community. The curse has been that the BOD is usually seen as the bad guys and having to deal with the emotional and physical strain of this is difficult. The PTO does not always agree with the BOD and so on. We are in the middle of a crisis situation at our school and it would be more of a disaster if a board member and a PTO member were one and the same...
Depending on your Board's purpose is, as in our case, the BOD and the PTO has two totally different missions and I personally feel that serving on both would be a major conflict of interest!
If the proper channels were taken for the board member to serve on the PTO board then I don't see how there could be a conflict. But if one or two people decided to stick this person in without the members knowledge I would be asking for a meeting to hash this out.
This has been talked about before and (if I remember correctly) to sum it up we, well the ones that posted agreeded that there could be a conflict of intrerest and yet some thought it could give each "committee" a new light on issues.
Personaly, my Principal frowns on it simply because it's too much for one to commit to. The school board can and has met twice or more a week to discuss several important issues including their monthly meeting that is open to the public AND THEN to have to be able to complete the duties of say President of the PTO, and cook, clean, kids, work, shop, pee (sorry Tim [img]smile.gif[/img] )laundry etc. I'm just tired thinking about it. Somewhere wouldn't you be afraid you would lose sight of why you wanted to do this in the first place? I would love to serve on our school's board and the board would love to have me but I also have a 12 year old and four more under the age of 6! You bet I have time to work up to that position and my help with the PTO will enhase that.
Back to my point,(sorry) serving on both takes alot of time and energy. Also what does the school think about this issue? Does the school board have an issue with this idea (some have by-laws too.) There maybe confidenal items too that only certain people can handle keeping just that, confidental which can be an issue.
A good friend of mine that just finished her two year term said serving in the Army was easier than the past two years on the school board. I was President of the PTO that year and she would come to the meetings as she is a member and could never get a moments peace from parents.
